V3C14: Target, State Rank One!

When the results for midterms came back, I was victorious once more. This time, I wasn’t just first place, the score difference between me and the person who got second place was more than twenty marks, whilst the difference between the second and third places was just a single mark.

In the eyes of both teachers and students, it was as if I was being carried up by a rocket, climbing and climbing. I wasn’t just first in the school in their eyes anymore, I was the potential first in the state.

During our parent-teacher interviews, the elderly principal made sure to talk to my parents personally, expressing that as long as my family and the school worked together, there was a high chance of the first female to rank first in the sciences being me. My parents were flattered and promised to cooperate fully with the teachers.

Zhang Jun was able to improve slightly to the twenty-ninth in the grade, but Guan He slipped down again to forty-somethingth.

When Lin Yiran and I went to see our results, a few students in the grade below us were also looking at our rankings and talking about me, things about how Luo Qiqi was always late to class, never listened in class, disliked doing homework, and how Luo Qiqi was dating the most handsome but also the most flirtatious man in her grade, always going out to cinemas and clubs…

They made exaggerated hand gestures as they spoke, sometimes exploding into exclamation as if I was able to get rank one without studying at all.

I looked up at the ranking board and sighed. Lin Yiran couldn’t stop her laughing.

A girl pointed at Zhang Jun’s name for them. “Do you see this? Zhang Jun used to be always at rank seventy or eighty, but ever since he got together with Luo Qiqi, his grades were able to get better and better under her help.”

I couldn’t help but retort, “Zhang Jun had never needed Luo Qiqi to help him. He learnt everything himself and he’s never asked her any questions regarding studying.” Zhang Jun was proud, if he heard those rumors, he would definitely get upset.

The girls looked at me as if I was crazy and continued their gossip as if they didn’t hear me at all, and as they were talking, left.

Just then, I saw that Guan He was also amongst the crowd looking at the ranking board. I waved at her and was about to start a conversation with her, but she left immediately. Even though her expression was polite, I could feel her impatience. I was too worried about the rumours just then though and didn’t think too deeply about her reaction. 

After midterms, it was clear that all the teachers had started their strategy. There was at least one set of tests for each of the sciences, and it wasn’t much better for Chinese or English, many people had to stay up till one in the morning to be able to complete all of the homework. I used to not hand in my homework occasionally, but now I stopped handing it in entirely. My personal rules were that I either did it to my best, or didn’t do it at all- I never wasted my time glossing over essays or copying another’s homework. Nevertheless, even though I didn’t hand in my work, my grades only improved, so the teachers ignored me for the most part as the rumors around me turned more and more otherworldly. 

Under the continuously increasing stress of each subject, many students began to improve with each test, but many students slipped down as well. Shen Yuanzhe was one of those who fell the hardest.

He came to me for help, stressed out of his mind, telling me that he was trying his hardest but for some reason, his grades kept falling. In order to help him, I left Lin Yiran and Yang Jun for the first time and became deskmates with him.

I found that observing his study methods, he really was hardworking and completed all the work that the teachers set in earnest, but the problem was just that- he was too earnest, too thorough. 

I went through his test papers from each subject, and from the sea of questions that the teachers set us, picked out the select few I found would be the most valuable in regards to his abilities. I told him that it would be better to spend the entire night focusing on them, rather than trying to finish all the homework.

Shen Yuanzhe followed my orders and diligently did all the questions I picked out. When he was done, he thought that it was all finished, he didn’t expect me to ask him to memorize them as well. He was surprised. “But the questions for the sciences are always different. Do I still need to memorize them?” 

“What I really want is for you to think about the thought process behind each question, because no matter how many questions there are, they’re all built from the same foundation. Thinking about it the right way isn’t something I can teach you, it’s just something you’ll have to experience for yourself.”

Due to my request, Shen Yuanzhe would often have to spend three or four times more time than he had before, which resulted in him being unable to complete the homework set for us. Still, he was a good student and refused to not hand in the homework, so he had to copy the work of others. Everyone teased him for following Luo Qiqi’s bad example.

On the nights I wasn’t walking home with Zhang Jun, I would find time to ask Shen Yuanzhe to walk with me and I would quiz him on last week’s questions, asking him over and over why he chose to solve it the way he did.

The period from five to seven days afterwards was the optimal time period for memorization, reliving memories at around that time would ensure that the information would enter the long-term memory. Asking him the same questions again and again would help him understand, the point being not to solve the questions, but to understand the ‘why’ behind it. 

I had wanted to tell Zhang Jun about those days I chose to walk home with Shen Yuanzhe, but I discovered that he was too busy taking the long way around with Guan He to mind about me.

In my anger, I chose not to say anything, and turned my head to focus on tutoring Shen Yuanzhe.

One night, after I had finished quizzing Shen Yuanzhe, I felt frustrated and sat next to Shen Yuanzhe on the chair by the flowerbed.

The stress of studying, the uncertainty of the future, Zhang Jun’s attractiveness, the pressure of being together with him, and the beautiful and exceptional Guan He… I was unable to take it all and for the first time, I confided everything to him about my jealousy of Guan He.

I told Shen Yuanzhe that even though Guan He saw me as a friend, I was constantly envious of her, that I was usually able to control it, but everytime Zhang Jun became involved, I would break, that sometimes, just seeing her talking to Zhang Jun between classes would make me feel down, and all kinds of negative emotions like depressions and jealousy would appear.

“Have you talked with Zhang Jun?” Shen Yuanzhe asked.

“I would never tell him.” I liked him, therefore I would never want such an ugly side of me to be exposed.

“You don’t have to beat yourself up over it. It’s common to be jealous of someone, the only difference is that the person you’re jealous of is a friend. Still, you’ve never done anything wrong towards Guan He.”

Slowly, my spirits rose a little.

This was probably the first time a girl had ever opened their heart up to Shen Yuanzhe so much, and he asked curiously, “Why do you trust me so much? And why do you help me so much as well? I’ve known that you were since first year, no matter what I proposed, you would support me with your all. You always look so extroverted and easy going, but you’re actually very stubborn and sensitive- it feels to others like it’s easy to become close with you, but it’s hard for anyone to truly become your friend.”

I smiled and shook my head. “Do you really not remember? We’ve talked in middle school.”

He frowned and said very certainly, “No, I wouldn’t have forgotten if we had ever talked before.”

“Don’t be so sure, think again!”

“I’ve heard of your name, and I knew that you were smart, good at public speaking, good at debating, and had even gone onto television before, and that you were the famous celebrity of our grade, but we had never talked before.”

I laughed. “Famous? You meant infamous?”

Shen Yuanzhe was still thinking hard about it. “I really don’t remember us talking.”

“In first grade of middle school, there was a girl crying on the table in Class 1,” I reminded him.

He still wasn’t able to remember and I smiled. “I was chased by Ju Baopeng and was made to sit amongst the rubbish bins in the back of the classroom. I was crying from distress. You were on your way to Class 2 or something to see your sister and came in when you heard me crying and patiently comforted me, talking with me for nearly forty minutes, only leaving when you saw that I had stopped crying.”

“As a child, I was sick often so I started school late, so since I was older than you, I always liked to act the ‘all knowing older brother’, but I don’t remember ever talking to you.” He had clearly started to believe my words but was unable to pinpoint me from his memories. I was mixed in with all the other people that he had comforted and had left no special mark in his memory. He was shocked. “I didn’t think that we had talked so early.” 

I also felt that it was very strange. In the same time, the same space, two people witnessed two exactly same things but retained vastly different memories. One held them so clear, the other had completely forgotten.

“For you, all you had done was talk to a stranger, so it’s fairly normal for you not to remember, but for me, it was like a ray of light in my dark world. Even if we didn’t get into the same class in high school and had never become friends, I would always remember you and appreciate you.”

“You think of me too highly,” he replied.

“Do I?”

“I’m a very utilitarian person.”

“I can tell.”

He hesitated a little. “I’m not very morally upstanding in how I do things.”

“Are you talking about the school election? It was all about who could get the upper hand anyways, I could tell that you weren’t that warm and kind person you put yourself to be ever since third grade of middle school.” I patted his shoulder as I would towards a friend and smiled. “My world’s never been that black and white- the only thing I think of is to be good to whoever treats me well, so you can stop looking as if you’ve lied to me.”

Shen Yuanzhe pushed up his glasses and chuckled. For the first time, I felt that we were friends.

After school on the next day, I went to Zhang Jun to tell him that I had found myself a new friend in Shen Yuanzhe. I was too embarrassed to wait for him directly outside the classroom door, so I waited for him in the corner of the stairs. However, even after most of the students had left, Zhang Jun still didn’t come out. I walked over to the door to check and found Zhang Jun sitting on his table, Guan He standing next to him, leaning on the window as the two of them chatted in a low voice. Most of the lights had been turned off already, and only the lamp on the teacher’s desk was still on. The two of them were surrounded by darkness, the low light outlining the melancholy on Guan He’s face, and the gentleness on Zhang Jun’s. It really was moving.

I stood in the shadow outside the classroom and watched them silently, hoping that Zhang Jun would notice me, but no such thing happened. He never took his eyes off Guan He.

I turned and slowly walked out of the corridor.

For two consecutive days, I ignored Zhang Jun, but he never appeared in front of me, though he spared no effort to walk Guan He home after school everyday.

On Friday morning, after I had finished gymnastics and had walked into the maths block, I saw Zhang Jun, Master Zhen and a few other of their friends standing in the corridor, talking and laughing about something.

Seeing me, Master Zhen said, “Look, the lady in question. Zhang Jun, go ask your princess.”

I glanced at him coldly, ignored him and walked away.

“Qiqi, Qiqi.”

Zhang Jun called after me but I never turned around. The laughing behind me immediately stopped.

I thought that he would come find me during lunch, but instead of looking for me, he was standing by Guan He and talking to her once again.

That afternoon, Shen Yuanzhe asked me, “I have two movie tickets, do you want to come?”

I agreed immediately. Let Zhang Jun have his fun with his Guan He!

There were quite a lot of people in the theatre so we had to sit at the very edge. The movie was《Butterfly Lovers》by Nicky Wu and Carlie Yeung. At first, I was laughing so much that I felt as if I was gaining abs, but towards the end, my heart ached from all the pain, and I felt as if the sadness in my heart was rushing up, wave after wave. I struggled to keep it together but at the end, I couldn’t hold it back and started bawling.

Shen Yuanzhe passed me some tissues and I started crying without a care in the world about my reputation.

Even after the movie had finished, I still had to continuously wipe away my tears. To be honest, I didn’t even know what I was crying for, whether it was the movie, or grievances from my own life. Shen Yuanzhe didn’t know what to do and could only sit there dumbly.

“Luo Qiqi, Zhang Jun’s over there.”

Shen Yuanzhe suddenly tugged on my sleeve. I looked up and saw Master Zhen and Master Jia with a strange expression on their faces, and Zhang Jun, whose own face had darkened. In his eyes there was the pain of the wronged, and confusion.

I stood up and asked in surprise, “Did you also come to watch the movies?”

Shen Yuanzhe smiled and waved. “Zhang Jun.”

The anger on Zhang Jun’s face disappeared and he walked towards Shen Yuanzhe, a grin on his face like he was going to say hello, but in a second, one of his arms was forcing down Shen Yuanzhe’s shoulder whilst the other slammed into his stomach. Only now did Shen Yuanzhe move up his hand to block the attack, but compared to Zhang Jun who grew up fighting, he was powerless. 

Zhang Jun was able to flip Shen Yuanzhe onto the floor with a few simple movements. Shen Yuanzhe’s face was full of blood but Zhang Jun lifted his feet up in preparation for another kick. His mouth still held the shape of that easygoing smile, but his eyes were filled with fierceness. At that moment, I wasn’t scared that Shen Yuanzhe would be hurt, but rather that Zhang Jun would injure him so badly that it would destroy the life which he tried so hard to restart.

I started to scream in horror. “Zhang Jun! Stop it!”

My shrill voice echoed in the empty cinema. Zhang Jun stopped his movements, looked up at me for a moment, then left.

Master Zhen casted towards me a look filled with disgust before chasing after Zhang Jun.

I kept saying to Shen Yuanzhe, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’ll take you to the hospital.”

Shen Yuanzhe held onto the chair and stood up shakily. “I’m fine, it’s just a scratch. He probably misunderstood, you should go explain to him.”

I didn’t say anything. Explain? Why should I? Just because I came out to watch a movie without telling him? He wasn’t the boss of a mafia, and I wasn’t some pet that he owned.

That night, I laid on my bed trying to sleep with no avail, my mood swinging from sorrow to anger repetitively. Just as I was turning around again, I heard a group of drunken people shouting downstairs, their voices familiar.

I climbed up in shock, flipped a corner of the curtains open, and looked down to see Zhang Jun and his friends underneath the yellow lamplight, drunk beyond measure.

They drank whilst singing Andy Lau’s 《Forget Love Potion》 at the top of their lungs towards my window. 

“Used to be youths chasing after dreams, hearts fixed on going forwards! Walked past the mountains and waters, such a long road with no return! I turned around, and my love was gone, life was not mine above the clouds! I finally understood between love and hate, the most hurtful of them is regret. If your heart was never broken, you would not understand my pain. When there are tears in my eyes, do not ask who it is for. Just let me forget it all. Ah, give me a potion to forget love…”

If I was twenty-seven that year, maybe I would have ran downstairs and hugged him tightly- then my self-esteem and his pride would have all become nothing, but I was merely seventeen and could only hide behind the curtain, listening to the singing whilst fearing that my parents would wake up.

After they finished signing, they were still reluctant to leave and the faint sounds of speaking floated up.

“Call her down, call her down.”

“Make her explain herself.”

My heart rose in fear that they would shout out my name in their drunken state. Thankfully, after they smashed a few beer bottles against the telephone pole, they stumbled away, still singing《Forget Love Potion》 at the top of their lungs.

When they hadn’t left, I was so nervous, praying for them to leave quickly, but now that they were gone, I felt a strange sense of melancholy and sorrow. Maybe I understood that, deep in my heart, we had missed yet another chance of letting go of our pride and opening up to each other.

The next day during breakfast, my parents ranted about those drunk delinquents from last night. As I listened, I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

Wolfing down my breakfast, I hid in my bedroom and called Zhang Jun. His aunt picked up and hearing that it was my voice, she said, “Zhang Jun’s still sleeping. I’ll go wake him up.”

Before, he used to pick up immediately, even if he was sleeping but now, a long time passed before his voice sounded from the other side. “What do you want?”

His voice was so cold that I almost hung up but I still continued, “I… Nothing much.”

“If there’s nothing then I’ll go to sleep.”

He finished speaking but didn’t hang up. I said with a strained voice “Then sleep!” and immediately hung up.

Just as I secretly swore to never call him again, my phone started ringing. I picked up immediately, hopeful. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Mhm.”

I didn’t say anything but I didn’t hang up either.

He was silent for a while before asking, “Do you like Shen Yuanzhe?”

“What? Of course not!”

“Then did you know that he likes you?”

“No matter who spread the rumour, it’s all false!”

“Do I need gossip to know about it? I could tell that he liked you ever since summer camp. You treated him weirdly as well, so that was why I lived with him, to keep an eye on him.”

No wonder. I had always felt that it was weird how Shen Yuanzhe and Zhang Jun used to be so close to each other yet were now merely acquaintances.

“You’re probably overthinking this. Shen Yuanzhe is really nice to everyone, half naturally, half out of other motives. He’s the type to always keep a third choice open…”

Zhang Jun cut me off impatiently. “Let me ask you this, are you sitting with him right now?”

“Yes.”

“Did you walk home with him after school?”

“Yes.”

“I bore all of these without a question, but then you rejected me in front of all my friends on the weekends and went to watch movies with him- just who do you take me to be?”

I only went out with Shen Yuanzhe because you were always with Guan He.

“Do you like me or not?” he asked.

“What do you think?” I was angry that he still had to ask me this question even now. If I didn’t like him, I would be far less troubled.

“I’ll give you two choices, either me, or Shen Yuanzhe. Who are you going to choose?” he answered.

I felt distressed. “Shen Yuanzhe is my friend, and you’re my boyfriend. One relationship is friendship, the other is love, there’s no conflict between them! If I asked you to choose between Master Zhen and I, would you be happy?”

“I don’t care who you’re friends with, just no Shen Yuanzhe. For fuck’s sake, he already knew that you had a boyfriend yet he still asked you out to the movies. Did he think that I didn’t know what he was trying to do?! Trying to fucking play dirty with me, if you still have me in your heart at all, then change seats immediately. Don’t sit with him, don’t walk home with him, and don’t talk with him!”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I won’t contact you anymore this weekend, we’ll both think about it. If you keep sitting with Shen Yuanzhe on Monday, then I’ll understand.” Saying that, he slammed down the phone and hung up.

On Monday, I kept sitting with Shen Yuanzhe.

It was the chemistry common test soon and this test was extremely important for Shen Yuanzhe, I needed him to pick up confidence in himself. Without self-confidence, he would be eliminated in third year where everyone would be trying their hardest.

Zhang Jun started to ignore me. Even if he walked past each other in the corridors, he didn’t turn around to look at me once.

I went to find him many more times to explain that he had really misunderstood Shen Yuanzhe, but when I saw that he was always with either Guan He or Huang Wei, I was so tired that I didn’t want to say anything anymore. Since he was able to live happily without me, there was no reason for me to force my presence onto him.

On Thursday, our results came back. Shen Yuanzhe got a fairly decent mark and he thanked me.

“There’s no need to be this polite between friends. If you have any questions in the future you are always welcome to come find me.” I replied.

On Friday, I moved back to my original spot and continued my little triplet with Lin Yiran and Yang Jun. To show his warm welcome, Yang Jun pulled my chair back during class, making me fall to the floor whilst Lin Yiran demanded to know how I was able to keep improving my chemistry.

I was glad to have them as my rivals and proud to have them as my friends. Their existence made this cruel competition appear more fun and heartwarming.

That afternoon, when the class meeting and school was over, I carried my bag and walked home in boredom, alone.

Normally around this time, Zhang Jun would have already planned out the schedule for the night, and I was used to wasting time with him. Before, I wanted him to stop being so clingy, but now that I had so much spare time on my hands, I suddenly realised that I did not wish to be alone at all. My head was filled with images of him.

I didn’t want to go home so I sat down by the river and stared blankly at it.

I didn’t know what Zhang Jun was doing right now, but no matter what, he would never be lonely.

Suddenly, a rock landed in the water in front of me, splashing me head to toe with water.

I turned around and saw Zhang Jun standing on the bridge, a grin on his face. “Do you have anything going on tonight? I bought us some movie tickets so let’s watch them together!”

I glared at him. How could he be so calm, as if nothing had happened? Did he have even a shred of consideration for all the struggles I went through in the past week?

I turned my head, pretending that I couldn’t see him at all.

He started to throw rocks into the river, the water splashing up until my hair and body were all wet, but I angrily pretended that nothing had happened and continued staring into the distance.

As he threw the rocks, he smiled gleefully. “Are you coming or not? If you’re not coming, then I’ll have to keep throwing. There’s an endless supply of rocks here, you know.”

I sat as still as a rock, firm in my decision to ignore him.

Suddenly, the flying rocks stopped coming and the splashes which were surrounding me vanished. His voice disappeared and the world suddenly became too quiet, with only the flowing river and my own breathing.

I started to get worried but I stubbornly refused to turn my head around.    

Time dragged on. I was no longer just worried, I started to become scared. Was he still there? Did he get angry again? Maybe he has already left?

In the end, I couldn’t help but turn around.

The summer dawn had dyed the small bridge red a while ago. The night wind blew gently across the river as he stood against the railing, his clothes fluttering in the wind. Everything was as beautiful as a painting, but on his face there was a sly smirk that did not fit into the beautiful scene, pleased with his successful trickery. “You still turned around!”

I got up and walked away in anger and he hurriedly flipped over the railing to chase after me. “Qiqi, it’s my fault, I’ll apologize.”

“It was my fault the other day. I shouldn’t have hit him”

“I promise I’ll never interfere with your freedom with making friends and to never hit anyone again.”

I remained silent and kept walking. He wanted to help me take my bag but I clutched onto it tightly.

“Qiqi, are you really breaking up with me for Shen Yuanzhe?”

I slowed down. Seeing the opportunity, he immediately reached for my bag. I no longer refused him and allowed him to take it.

He relaxed and smiled. “I’ll wait for you at the bridge tonight. When can you finish dinner? Or maybe lie to your mum and don’t eat at home, let’s go eat in the night market.”

I wasn’t able to say anything. I wasn’t like him, so easily angered but so easily appeased, my thoughts were still trying to process everything.

“Qiqi, don’t be angry, I’ve already said that it’s all my fault. Say something!”

“I need to eat dinner at home but I’ll make sure to eat less and come out after dinner.”

He smiled and snapped his finger. “My Qiqi is always so smart”

Amidst our chatter, we were able to reconcile as if nothing had happened.

I had thought that this was just a small conflict like before and would pass before long as we reconciled, but I didn’t realize that from the very beginning, he had said those words, ‘it’s my fault’. He had let go of his self-esteem because of his love, because of his fear of losing me, but the self-esteem of a man was like a spring. It might be pushed down by the pressure of the world, but eventually, it would bounce back again, even higher than before.

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Luci: Shen Yuanzhe deserved better smh

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